Mr. Speaker, like my hon. colleagues, I am pleased to participate in this debate today on Bill C-20, an act respecting the commercialization of civil air navigation services. Among other things, this bill establishes a business corporation called Nav Canada, or NAVCAN.
We are now at report stage, at Group No. 4, to be more precise, Motion No. 15 put forward by the Bloc Quebecois. This motion is to amend clause 32 of the bill to ensure that DND and state aircraft of a foreign country are not exempt from paying charges.
To listen to the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Transport, you would think that the Bloc Quebecois never understands a thing and always introduces useless motions. He claims this is a good arrangement between the Department of National Defence and Nav Canada, which will apparently split the costs about 50-50. I would be curious to see the parliamentary secretary's figures in this.
At any rate, I should point out that a proposal has already been tabled by small air carriers, suggesting that DND should have to pay for its use of services at airports in Quebec and Canada.
The problem, then, comes from the need not to make taxpayers, passengers and air carriers pay for military aircraft, and there is no guarantee whatsoever that it will not be the case.
The Bloc Quebecois feels it is unfair to have private users pay for services required by national defence. If clause 32(2) is not amended, defence expenditures will once again be hidden. We have always demanded a reduction in military spending. For this to happen, we first have to know the actual costs. However, in its present form, clause 32(2) will not enable us to know these costs.
Again, it is not up to private air carriers and Canadian taxpayers to pay for DND's flying activities until the minister tables the figures relating to such activities.
Our motion is based on the notion of transparency. It seeks to avoid an artificial reduction of the national defence budget, so as to ensure that actual costs and expenditures relating to such activities are accounted for.
Taxpayers living in remote regions-including those represented by the hon. members for Abitibi, Lac-Saint-Jean, Gaspé and others-must sometimes pay two or three times more per kilometre to go to Montreal or Quebec City than people who travel between Montreal and Toronto. Therefore, I do not see why national defence should be exempted from having to pay the costs associated with its flying activities.
Since the Liberal government is cutting social programs, programs helping the handicapped, old age pensions and women's support programs, I wonder what could possibly justify keeping clause 32(2).
If there is such a thing as natural justice, the Liberal government has definitely missed the boat in this case and forgotten about the principles of fairness which underlie our laws.
I ask all members of this House to support Motion No. 15 moved by the Bloc Quebecois, so that national defence, for the reasons I mentioned, will not be exempt from paying fees to Nav Canada.